


Crash Crash Burn

by sasha_b



Series: Live By The Sword [48]
Category: King Arthur (2004), Original Work
Genre: Language, M/M, Sex, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 02:04:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14415294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: the morning followingFeel Good, Inc..  Lancelot comes home.





	Crash Crash Burn

**Author's Note:**

> part of my Sword 'verse. These guys are comfort food for me and I use them when I need them, and I'm still thankful for that.
> 
> Title comes from _Hurricane_ by 30 Seconds To Mars. Originally written in January 2011; new edit 2018.

Something was crushing Lancelot, as though he were between the two steel plates of a junkyard machine.

Light crackled from behind closed eyes; he shoved at the thing that was weighing him down, and scrambled, blind, head pounding, body stiff and sore, out from under Arthur’s sleep dead body. Naked, he sat still on the expensive Persian rug, blinking slowly, hair shoved straight back off his forehead. His aristocratic nose itched suddenly, and he raised a hand, rubbing at it as he cocked his head and regarded the other man.

They must have left a light on at some point; the sun had not risen, and the flickering from the lamp that lay on its side made his left eye twitch and his head pound harder. Shoving off from his awkward sprawl, he rose and flinched all over, every muscle in his slender frame firing at the same time.

“Fuck.” 

The curse shot from his lips painfully, knocking at his teeth; he froze, waiting to see if Arthur would move, would turn over, would say anything incriminating or cruel from his stupor on the sofa.

Nothing. The other man snored softly, his dark hair wild around his face, the five o’clock shadow that was perpetual casting his mouth and chin into deep shadow. Lance took a few steps and stood at Arthur’s feet, watching as Arthur’s arm and chest moved with his calm breathing. Calm, patient breathing, the breathing of the just and sleep deprived, the breathing of the perfect and the good.

Lance rolled his lips inward, sucking in a breath as the pain of innumerable bites fired to life. He slipped his tongue over his sore mouth and by shutting his eyes, could taste Arthur there, could feel the other man’s fingers and lips on him – forever, and yet maybe never again. The coming dawn ate at his brain; he knew it was coming by nature of the shakes that were also coming on.

_Where are my…ah._

He leaned over and fished his leather pants out from under the coffee table.  They were tangled with his boxers, and he groaned as he straightened, pulling the crumpled things on over his legs and ass. Arthur slept on, even as Lance’s gaze bored a hole in his head. He bit his lip again as he found a shirt and tugged it on. Arthur’s button down, which was only missing two buttons. It would have to do.  He toed on his shoes without lacing them and staggered toward the door, only stopping when he realized he had no car and no way to get home. The light was coming, and day would be starting soon. If he was seen coming out of Arthur’s house, it would be bad for Arthur. Really bad.

A soft intake of breath had him turning back to the man on the couch. Arthur’s naked flanks shone white in the light of the overturned lamp, and Lance paused, hand on the door. He sighed when Arthur did, and walked slowly (being as quiet as he could) to the couch, and picked up the blanket that normally covered the back of the furniture. Draping it over Arthur’s bare body, Lance’s hand froze an inch from Arthur’s hair – should he – he let the long digits drop into the curly wild mass lightly.

Lance wondered how many times he could bite his lip and not make it bleed again.

He pulled away from Arthur when the other man turned over onto his side, his eyelids fluttering. It was time to go; past time. No matter if it had been Arthur that had started this, had brought Lancelot kicking and screaming back into the past, into what he couldn’t have anymore, what wouldn’t work anymore, what was too painful to even contemplate making work.

Not kicking and screaming, if he were any kind of honest with himself. He scraped a hand through his own wild hair and then pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

He made the door finally, scooping up Arthur’s keys, just as the small sound of his name, said sleepily and low, the tone familiar and bringing a rush of tears to his eyes. He shut Arthur’s door and scrambled down the stairs, heading for the street and the –

“Fuck.”

He slung a leg over the Bonneville’s seat; it had been a damn long time since he’d done this. And he’d only done it maybe four times. Well, it would be like riding a bike, right?

The engine roared to life under him, and he jerked the bike out into the street, the weight of the thing surprising and almost forcing him to fall as he executed a quick right. His ass hurt and his back throbbed and his entire body screamed at him as he moved and flowed with the Triumph the way Arthur had shown him a million years ago.

The other man would kill him for taking his bike. But fuck it, Arthur in his rampant, ridiculous horniness had not left Lance any other way to get home, for fuck’s sake! He deserved whatever Lance gave him. Fucker. His hands shook on the handlebars and he let the entrance to the freeway pass by; he didn’t trust himself on the 5, not with the way he was feeling. The tremors were getting worse and the sun was coming up over the edge of the Hills.

He weaved through the silent streets; no riots, no people, no nothing, save the vibrations of the bike under his thighs.

_Arthur’s hands on his hips, his fingers squeezing, touching, possessing. His lips on Lance’s, tongue inside, bruising, biting, owning._

Tears burned from his eyes in a streaming, wind pulled arc, the snot that gradually flowed from his nose unchecked dripping onto his cheeks and into his hair along with the wetness from his eyes. His vision blurred and his muscles shook and he could barely control the bike under him. He sobbed as he drove, the wind ripping at his unprotected hair and face, his shirt – Arthur’s – flapping around his slender torso. If he breathed deeply enough he could smell the other man’s cologne and musk, which just made everything so much worse.

Clenching his jaw, he managed the remaining half a mile in a stupor, crying and aching and lonely, so lonely his head throbbed with the pain of it. Fuck it, it was just – he needed a pick me up, and he was just tired. It had been a while since he’d had a night like that, and well, ah – there was the club and his Thunderbird.

He drew the bike to a juddering halt, his foot sinking to the pavement just in time to keep the Triumph from toppling. He wrenched the key out of the ignition and shoved the ring into the Bonney’s saddlebags; Arthur would know where to find them. Or if he didn’t, well, too goddamn bad.

Lance shuffled to his car and got in. Digging through his pockets, realized he didn’t have his own keys. They must be in the jacket pocket – the jacket he’d left at Arthur’s.

He snorted back a sob; funny! So funny it made him double over in the seat, his head hitting the steering wheel, his forehead hurting where there would surely be a bump from the contact with the hard, old plastic. So funny he cried more when he found the stash of coke in the glove compartment and finally, after a few panic induced moments when he couldn’t find a flat surface, so funny when he stopped shaking and crying. His eyes were glassy and bright and he blinked a few times, gaze meeting the risen sun, trying to figure out how he’d gotten in his car and why he wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d started in the previous night.

He dug again for his keys, but still couldn’t find them, and then remembered the jacket again.  Cursing, he climbed over the open window of the convertible and headed slowly, calmly for the entrance to the club. Punching in the code for the lock, he let himself in to Perfect Circle, and made his way down the stairs without flipping the lights on, the sun shut out by the heavy steel door at his back.

*

Music thundered through the club, and the walls reverberated with bass that shook his chest. Lance, one hand clapped to the headphones over his ears, watched the record album (classic, sounded much better; besides, he was an image whore) turn as he spun. Strobes flashed and sweaty bodies gyrated and he continued to stare at the turning record, the music slow and thick and melodious and he wiped his free hand under his nose.

He’d slept in his office upstairs; the shower he’d had installed welcomed and comforting, despite how hyped up he felt when he woke. The rest of the coke he’d found earlier was rapidly used and his eyes were wide and dilated despite how dark it was in Perfect Circle. The clothing…well. He had found a few safety pins and had fixed Arthur’s shirt to within decent enough appearance for his taste, and the leathers had only been worn once before.

He had thrown away his boxers; he really didn’t make a practice of wearing them anyway, so it didn’t matter. His body was still achy and tight and bruised and he didn’t want to forget that. Arthur’s hands had made the marks and Arthur’s nails had scored his thighs and Arthur’s teeth had bitten his neck, which was red and blue and purple and showed really well. The collar of the borrowed shirt hung way low away from his throat; he touched the bite once every few minutes, reverently, slowly, stroking long fingers over it, his groin jumping every time.

After several hours he handed the reins over to the club’s normal dj, and stepped away from the booth, threading his way through the throng of regulars and kids that had gotten in for the first time. He allowed them their shouts of greeting, touching, and in one instance, a kiss from a drunk redhead that had giggled and grabbed his ass. He smiled brightly and kept moving after sticking his tongue down her throat, leaving her dazed and tipsy in the middle of her friends.  He scaled the stairs, the people dotting the metal framework making way for him, their combined stink and sweat and flesh forcing a rise of nausea from his stomach. Lighting a cigarette, he sucked down the familiar burn of tar and nicotine and shoved out into the poison night air, the noise from the choppers and police patrols oddly silent for once.

Lance’s hands shook on his cigarette as he crossed the parking lot, sure of his destination. He inhaled deeply, the calming effect of the smoke entering his bloodstream in contrast to the upper he’d used earlier weird and jangling but successful. Stars winked through the miasma of smog; he was surprised at their appearance, stopping as he reached his Thunderbird, leaning against the metal hulk of the car, looking upward, smoking, breathing, touching his bite. He closed his eyes as he lowered his head, opening them when his gaze would land where he wanted it to –

He laughed, barking, rough, empty. The bike was gone, as he’d thought it would be. Arthur hadn’t bothered to come inside, to tell him he’d come, to yell, to fight, to stare silently, balefully at Lance, or to kiss him goodbye.

Not that Lance had expected him to.

_Lancelot, he’d said, sleepy and deep, the dark hair swirled about his head, the eyes glittering even in the darkness of the single, sad, destroyed lamp._

Had he sat up as Lancelot had left? Had he followed him to the door, watched him take the bike? Had he come to the club immediately to get it? Had he wondered, been ashamed of his actions the night before? Had he wanted more? Lancelot would have easily capitulated, would have given in to Arthur’s every whim. He touched the bite again and closed his eyes, the lashes lying against his cheeks sharply, their lushness stark and black against the white of his skin. He dropped a hand, the cigarette dangling from his lips, parting them slightly as he rubbed fingers over the tightness that grew in his groin. The buttons of the fly pushed against the bare flesh underneath, and his head dropped back to loll lazily upward. The hand moved quickly, the cigarette disappearing as he sucked on the heat of it, drawing the drugging effect into his lungs, the stiffness of his cock doubling as he thought of Arthur, the roughness of what they’d done, the bite – gods, the bite on his neck.

He licked his lips and slid his hand into his pants, hissing at the contact, alone in his pleasure, drugged and crazed and lonely and high as the moon that was the only light in the parking lot. His flesh was hard, a dagger in his fingers, a weapon that could make things right or completely destroy everything.

A few rough strokes, Arthur’s name on his lips, and it was done, the completion not what it had been the night before. He opened his eyes, withdrew the hand, and reached into his convertible for something to clean up with. There were people in the parking lot, but he was in the last space and for fuck’s sake, it was his club. He could do what he damn well pleased. Even if it was get himself off at the thought of a half remembered train wreck of a night.

Something metal (and papery?) clicked against his fingers; he looked down and gathered up the thing that he’d touched. Cocking his head, he lifted it to his eyes. And laughed, for what felt like the hundredth time that night, the sound rolling off the walls at his back.

He ignored the burning in his eyes and chucked the tin of lip balm away; it had been the same type he’d left at Arthur’s, too. The note that had been attached he tucked into his pocket.

Finding a spare napkin he quickly cleaned up and tossed the thing in the trash as he headed back to the door to Perfect Circle. He needed to think and he needed some more blow. Things had changed a long time ago for him and Arthur, but last night had been a reminder that they weren’t so different. Or…fuck. Arthur had initiated that loveless sex, not him. And yet _nothing_ was loveless between them. Ever.

The club was still packed as Lance entered his office, plopping down behind the desk. He looked up at the door, making sure it was locked before drawing the note Arthur had left out of his pocket, scrubbing a hand through his hair, unfolding the thing with the other. The only light came from the large picture window behind him, and he had to shift the paper to see it.

He wadded it up after reading it, and tossed it on the desk, then turned the chair around to face the plate glass, the throbbing of the bass from the club vibrating through his chest, his torn shirt flapping around his slender chest, the leathers, once so sexy, seeming ridiculous now. He kicked off his shoes and pressed his hot feet against the glass, the cool bringing goose bumps to his skin.

_Lancelot,_

_I hope this is the right kind._

_I hope you made it back without much trouble.  I found the keys - thank you._

 

_I don't know what else to say._

_Take care of yourself._

_A_

His eyes slipped closed as he imagined Arthur’s flushed face as the other man had written the note, hastily scrawling it on the hood of Lance’s car, staring about furtively, hoping that no one would see him there.

The ac kicked on and the note blew to the ground under the large desk and Lance let his hands cradle his head, the hair pulling against his fingers, the bruises on his back aching, throbbing in time with the sluggish blood flow through his veins, the bite on his neck flaring to life as though it had just happened.

He bent over and rested his forehead on his knees, sick rising in his gorge, the _thump thump_ of the bass methodical and painful and distracting and hated.

~


End file.
